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A review by dollycas
Murder, Plain and Simple by Isabella Alan
4.0
When Angela Braddock inherits her late aunt’s beautiful Amish quilt shop, she leaves behind her career and broken engagement for a fresh start in Holmes County, Ohio.
With her snazzy cowboy boots and her ornithophobic French bulldog, Angie doesn’t exactly fit in with the predominantly Amish community in Rolling Brook, but her aunt’s quilting circle tries to make her feel welcome as she prepares for the reopening of Running Stitch.
On the big day, Angie gets a taste of success as the locals and Englisch tourists browse the store’s wares while the quilters stitch away. But when Angie finds the body of ornery Amish woodworker Joseph in her storeroom the next morning, everything starts falling apart.
With evidence mounting against her, Angie is determined to find the culprit before the local sheriff can arrest her. Rolling Brook always appeared to be a simple place, but the closer Angie gets to the killer, the more she realizes that nothing in the small Amish community is as plain as it seems….
Dollycas’s Thoughts
I really enjoyed this debut from Isabella Alan. One of the things I miss most since my accident is not being able to create all the quilt designs in my head. It is books like this that make things a bit easier. I quilt vicariously through the characters in the book.
While our protagonist visited her Aenti often she is still an outside and an Englischer. It would take time for everyone to adjust under normal circumstances but with the question of the shop’s true ownership hanging over her head and the man questioning it dead in the store room things are far from normal. Her Aunt’s friends rally around her but there are others in the community both Amish and English that believe she really killed the man.
Alan has surrounded Angie with some great supporting characters including her dog, Ollie, who happens to be deathly afraid of birds. There are also the friends she made on those summer visits who are now all grown up and these friends really add depth to the story and maybe a bit of romance in the future. Then again her mother hopes Angie will sell the store and come back to Texas and marry the man she broke up with. We just have to wait and see what happens :)
The author has patched together quite a mystery too. There are several threads to follow before the real murder is caught and everything is all sewn up. She kept me guessing all the way.
I am very excited to read Murder, Simply Stitched. It comes out June 3 and Isabella Allen will be her for Cozy Wednesday on June 18.
With her snazzy cowboy boots and her ornithophobic French bulldog, Angie doesn’t exactly fit in with the predominantly Amish community in Rolling Brook, but her aunt’s quilting circle tries to make her feel welcome as she prepares for the reopening of Running Stitch.
On the big day, Angie gets a taste of success as the locals and Englisch tourists browse the store’s wares while the quilters stitch away. But when Angie finds the body of ornery Amish woodworker Joseph in her storeroom the next morning, everything starts falling apart.
With evidence mounting against her, Angie is determined to find the culprit before the local sheriff can arrest her. Rolling Brook always appeared to be a simple place, but the closer Angie gets to the killer, the more she realizes that nothing in the small Amish community is as plain as it seems….
Dollycas’s Thoughts
I really enjoyed this debut from Isabella Alan. One of the things I miss most since my accident is not being able to create all the quilt designs in my head. It is books like this that make things a bit easier. I quilt vicariously through the characters in the book.
While our protagonist visited her Aenti often she is still an outside and an Englischer. It would take time for everyone to adjust under normal circumstances but with the question of the shop’s true ownership hanging over her head and the man questioning it dead in the store room things are far from normal. Her Aunt’s friends rally around her but there are others in the community both Amish and English that believe she really killed the man.
Alan has surrounded Angie with some great supporting characters including her dog, Ollie, who happens to be deathly afraid of birds. There are also the friends she made on those summer visits who are now all grown up and these friends really add depth to the story and maybe a bit of romance in the future. Then again her mother hopes Angie will sell the store and come back to Texas and marry the man she broke up with. We just have to wait and see what happens :)
The author has patched together quite a mystery too. There are several threads to follow before the real murder is caught and everything is all sewn up. She kept me guessing all the way.
I am very excited to read Murder, Simply Stitched. It comes out June 3 and Isabella Allen will be her for Cozy Wednesday on June 18.